[Taxacom] the hurdle for all biodiv informatics initiatives

[Stephen Thorpe]

>Of course, there are vastly MORE undescribed taxa in the field than there are in collections, and one might make the reasonable predicition that a higher percentaage of the undescribed taxa in collections will still be available for examination a hundred years from now; compared with the undescribed taxa in the field

In N.Z., probably 95% or so of all (not just known, but ALL) terrestrial species in the wild are in collections, but many still unrecognised in bulk samples etc. The problem is that many of them are only represented in collections by insufficient material, but until we know that, we don't know what to TARGET in the field, and so we just end up collecting more and more bulk samples full of the common taxa ...

"Charity begins at home" and "Taxonomy begins in collections" ...


________________________________________
From: Richard Pyle [deepreef at bishopmuseum.org]
Sent: Wednesday, 24 February 2010 7:02 p.m.
To: Stephen Thorpe; Tony.Rees at csiro.au; jim.croft at gmail.com
Cc: Taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu
Subject: RE: [Taxacom] the hurdle for all biodiv informatics initiatives

> Well, actually, I'd like to see them spending more of their
> (paid) time DOING TAXONOMY,

Agreed!  But part of "doing taxonomy" is spending time in the field.
Because I wasn't in the lab this morning doing the other part of taxonomy, I
wasn't in as good a position to make a smarmy post about that part of doing
taxonomy.

> which may or may not involve the
> field (there are plenty of undescribed taxa already in
> collections ...)

Of course, there are vastly MORE undescribed taxa in the field than there
are in collections, and one might make the reasonable predicition that a
higher percentaage of the undescribed taxa in collections will still be
available for examination a hundred years from now; compared with the
undescribed taxa in the field.

Rich